LAKE NONA, Fla.—A new collaboration was
established today
between the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research
Institute and Pfizer Inc. for the
identification of new
therapeutic targets for the prevention and treatment of
obesity- and diabetes-related complications. The partners will make use of
novel screening
tools including systems-biology approaches and technologies
developed at Sanford-Burnham as they seek new methods of reducing insulin
resistance in
patients suffering from obesity and diabetes.

Per the terms of the three-year agreement,
multi-disciplinary teams from both organizations will be collaborating on work
to identify and validate new targets for drug discovery. The
investigators will
be using Sanford-Burnham's Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics as they
screen for new targets using investigational
compounds from Pfizer and also
evaluate compounds previously identified from the National Institutes of Health
chemical library. Once they have
identified compounds of interest, the teams
will collaborate to characterize and further study the 'hit' compounds to
determine their mechanism of
action, and the compounds will be used as 'probes'
to identify novel therapeutic targets for treating diabetes. No financial terms
for the
collaboration were disclosed.

"Diabetes presents an enormous public health burden. There
is an acute
need to translate innovative science into potential new medicines
for people living with this debilitating disease," Tim Rolph, vice president
and
head of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Research Unit at Pfizer, said
in a press release regarding the agreement. "Pfizer's collaboration with
Sanford-Burnham to use their cutting-edge screen designs is an example of our
strategy to work with academic innovators to discover novel therapeutics
for
prevention and treatment of diabetes."

Sanford-Burnham's Prebys Center houses a state-of-
the-art
screening facility created to speed the rate of commercialization of basic
research in an independent medical research setting. Sanford-Burnham
brings to
the table capabilities in ultra-high throughput screening, high-content
screening, phenotypic screening and target deconvolution
technologies.

The collaboration provides Pfizer with access to
Sanford-Burnham's team of scientists
and its translational infrastructure,
while Sanford-Burnham will be able to continue its work of translating
high-impact science into new therapies.

"This important collaboration focuses our tremendous
scientific and translational firepower on a
major medical problem –
complications of obesity-related diabetes. Working with Pfizer, we can more
quickly bridge the gap between basic and
translational research," Stephen
Gardell, Ph.D., senior director of scientific resources at Sanford-Burnham
Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona,
commented in a statement.

The market for new, more effective diabetes therapeutics is
huge, as
diabetes remains one of the leading health issues and financial
burdens in the country. The American Diabetes Association reports that 25.8
million children and adults—roughly 8.3 percent of the population—had
diabetes
as of 2010, with 79 million people presenting with prediabetes. In addition,
diabetes contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths in 2007 as
either the
underlying cause or a contributing factor. The complications associated with
diabetes and obesity include heart disease, stroke, high blood
pressure,
blindness, kidney disease, neuropathy and amputation. The total healthcare
burden of diabetes in 2012 reached $245 billion, consisting of
$176 billion for
direct medical costs and $69 billion in reduced productivity. According to the
World Health Organization, some 347 million people suffer from diabetes
worldwide, and it is projected to be the 7th leading
cause of death by 2030.